New DNS list for host information?

[Marc Perkel <ma...@perkel.com>]

I'm considering a DNS list that would return strings as TXT records that 
contain key words that classify the Forward Confirmed rDNS name based on 
a number of flags. For example, if the host is yahoo.com it might 
contain "yellow freemail" indicating that it is yellow listed (mixed 
ham/spam) and that it is a freemail provider. Here's some tags I'm 
considering.

black - blacklisted
white - whitelisted
yellow - mixed source
nobl - nevr blacklist, but maybe whitelist
freemail - fre mail service like yahoo, hotmail, gmail
isp - isp consumer email servers - verizon, comcast etc. (mixed source)
dynamic - end user dynamic IP range

The idea being that there might be a number of different items that 
returns useful information to help process email. Exim is capable of 
processing these kind of conditionals. I'm not sure other MTAs are. SA 
could be modified to process it.

Who likes this idea?

Re: New DNS list for host information?

[Per Jessen <pe...@computer.org>]

Marc Perkel wrote:

> Who likes this idea?

The only way a list is really useful (for fighting spam) is when you
publish 1) how it is collected and 2) what the list-criteria are. 
IMHO.


/Per Jessen, Zürich

Re: New DNS list for host information?

[Theo Van Dinter <fe...@apache.org>]

I'm not saying anything positive or negative about the different lists,
but there's a long precedent of doing this type of thing w/ bits in a
standard DNS response.  Look at SURBL and URIBL, for example -- a single
response encodes multiple individual list entries, and there's no special
code that needs to be written for it.

On Thu, Apr 03, 2008 at 02:20:17PM -0500, Steve Radich wrote:
> I'd agree it's useful - the more info the better - Did you already write
> a spamassassin plugin or are you saying someone needs to?
[...]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marc Perkel [mailto:marc@perkel.com] 
[...]
> I'm considering a DNS list that would return strings as TXT records that
[...]
> a number of flags. For example, if the host is yahoo.com it might 
> contain "yellow freemail" indicating that it is yellow listed (mixed 
> ham/spam) and that it is a freemail provider. Here's some tags I'm 
> considering.

-- 
Randomly Selected Tagline:
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards,
 for they are subtle and quick to anger."    - Lord of the Rings

RE: New DNS list for host information?

[Steve Radich <st...@bitshop.com>]

I'd agree it's useful - the more info the better - Did you already write
a spamassassin plugin or are you saying someone needs to?

Steve Radich - http://www.aspdeveloper.net /
http://www.virtualserverfaq.com 
BitShop, Inc. - Development, Training, Hosting, Troubleshooting -
http://www.bitshop.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Perkel [mailto:marc@perkel.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 11:10 AM
To: users@SpamAssassin.apache.org
Subject: New DNS list for host information?

I'm considering a DNS list that would return strings as TXT records that

contain key words that classify the Forward Confirmed rDNS name based on

a number of flags. For example, if the host is yahoo.com it might 
contain "yellow freemail" indicating that it is yellow listed (mixed 
ham/spam) and that it is a freemail provider. Here's some tags I'm 
considering.

black - blacklisted
white - whitelisted
yellow - mixed source
nobl - nevr blacklist, but maybe whitelist
freemail - fre mail service like yahoo, hotmail, gmail
isp - isp consumer email servers - verizon, comcast etc. (mixed source)
dynamic - end user dynamic IP range

The idea being that there might be a number of different items that 
returns useful information to help process email. Exim is capable of 
processing these kind of conditionals. I'm not sure other MTAs are. SA 
could be modified to process it.

Who likes this idea?